Various commercially known plastic containers are manufactured by extrusion blow molding techniques, such as are described in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,384. In such practices, a tube of plastic is extruded and disposed in a mold with one end of the tube closed by mating sections of the mold and the other tube end sealably encircling a blow pin serviced by a source of compressed air. In the course of the blowing cycle, the portion of the tube trapped by the mold sections is expanded to conform to the shape of the mold cavity. Upon separation of the mold sections and removal of the blow pin, the practice provides a container having a filling/emptying opening constituted by the passage occupied by the blow pin in the blowing cycle.
While containers so fabricated have seen extended commercial usage, they exhibit various shortcomings, notably, content retention after emptying efforts and handling inconvenience. In respect of content retention, some or many known containers retain contents by reason of interior well structure adjacent their filling/emptying openings. As for handling inconvenience, some known containers, as shown, for example, in FIGS. 5-7 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,749, have integrally molded plastic handles aligned with the pour direction and are stackable only when compatibly orientated. In the U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,749, a diametric rectangular trough indentation is formed in the base of the container adapted to receive the molded handle of another container for stacking thereon. Such arrangement excludes random stacking, requiring alignment of the handles and troughs of the containers before stacking. In another type of container, as shown, for example, in FIGS. 1 and 3 of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,749, a handle in form of a wire bail is supported for pivotal movement into a use position and therefrom into a single recessed non-use position. While such latter containers may be randomly stacked, it is first required that their handles be disposed in such single non-use position.